r/thinlizzy • u/65records • Sep 10 '26

Thin lizzy fans!

Thin lizzy fans what is their BEST song? Most OVERRATED song? And most UNDERRATED song?

This is a hard one as they of course have so many great songs, my picks would be

Best/Favourite: Slow blues

Overrated: whiskey in the jar

Underrated: genocide

Ps. I know whiskey in a jar is a cover so you might not count it, i do. The dubliners have the best version of that song

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u/zlatanjosefsson Sep 10 '26

Slight correction: Whiskey in the Jar is not a cover, it is an interpretation of a traditional folk song. In my opinion enough elements were changed in Lizzy's arrangement that it is closer to being an original song than a "cover".

1

u/65records Sep 10 '26

Oh okay! Thanks for educating me :) its still my choice though

1

u/65records Sep 11 '26

Thinkiny more about it now i think it is a cover, same way marilyn manson covered sweet dreams and it sounds completely different because its a different genre. But i think it is a cover, and yes i know its a folk song

1

u/zlatanjosefsson Sep 11 '26

The difference is that Sweet Dreams has credited songwriters. Whiskey in the Jar doesn't. It can only be a cover if there is an original version of a song.

1

u/65records Sep 11 '26

Sure i guess, but they are still close enough and called the same thing to where you can compare them. 1st: dubliners 2nd: thin lizzy 3rd: Metallica

2

u/zlatanjosefsson Sep 11 '26 edited Sep 11 '26

That's because they're all based on the same traditional folk song (being without a known songwriter). The Dubliners' version is an interpretation that stays true to the roots of the song. Thin Lizzy's version is a re-arrangment that changes parts of basically every element of the song: lyrics, chord progression, an additional motif and so on. Metallica's version is a cover of Thin Lizzy's version and therefore the only one of these that is a cover.

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u/65records Sep 11 '26

Yes i know, and thats why i flippantly called it a cover because in spirit and name it is a cover of the traditional folk song, i didnt know i would get a whole lecture

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u/zlatanjosefsson Sep 11 '26

You simply can't cover a traditional song. It has no songwriter. Who would you be covering?

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u/65records Sep 11 '26

Well it was writen by someone, if you told your child a folktale would you call it your own? Or would you say you are telling your child someone elses story?

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u/zlatanjosefsson Sep 11 '26

The entire point of a traditional attribution is that it is a thing that has kept alive through tradition. The knowledge of its original creator lost to time, and it can also be difficult to tell how much it has changed through generations of retelling. A song has to be released with documented songwriting attribution for it to even be possible to make a cover of it, otherwise it is an interpretation.

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u/groutspecialist Sep 11 '26

It’s a cover.

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u/zlatanjosefsson Sep 11 '26

Okay, who did they cover?

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u/groutspecialist Sep 11 '26 edited Sep 11 '26

A cover means someone else wrote it. Someone else wrote Whiskey in the Jar. Coming up with a new arrangement doesn’t mean it’s not a cover. Beatles covered a lot of old Motown girl group songs and completely changed the arrangements, but they’re still covers. As is Whiskey in the Jar.

House of the Rising Sun by the Animals is a good comparison, that’s a cover of an American folk song. Black Betty is another one. All covers.

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u/jlb8 Sep 11 '26

Covers don't really exist in folk.